Tagged: collaboration

What’s the most important time zone in Europe?

by Jen O Neill

Working for an American multinational company with technical writing colleagues on both coasts of the US and me in Belgium, you’d think I’d be watching the clock to see when they’re in the office so that we can talk.

Nope.

I’m not watching the Instant Messager screen on my computer to see who’s available in the US. It’s my colleagues across Europe that I’m tracking. I often need them at short notice for information.
So which time zone matters the most to me when trying to get hold of my European colleagues during the day?

Lunchtime!

Between time zone differences and cultural differences on when to eat that exist between European countries sometimes I sometimes feel that I’ve been thinking about lunch for much of the day. If it’s X time, then A must be at lunch. And at X+1 time, B and C will be at lunch. C is at lunch at X+2 time …

From 11:00 in the morning (my time) my Finish colleagues aren’t around. It’s noon for them and they’re at lunch so no point chasing Finns then. An hour later, it’s my lunch time. So the German, French, Dutch and Italian colleagues know they won’t have me pinging them as we’re all at lunch.

By 14:00, my time, there’s no point contacting colleagues in Britain for information as it’s 1pm for them and they’re gone to lunch (except they’re not gone for long). In the past my Spanish colleagues would be off to lunch at 14:00 and often not return until near 16:00. So for a few years I was tracking a lunch time zone that could last up to five hours yet I never left Europe.

For many of us in Europe lunch is a main meal and not a grab-n-gobble sandwich at our desks. Sadly the two-hour lunch no longer (officially) exists in our European offices. When I moved to France from Britain years ago, I quickly adapted to a slow two-hour lunch with colleagues. The company canteen served a five-course meal with wine or beer. I then moved to Belgium to work for another company and lunch became an hour. Only one hour!

Working in a corporate environment can mean that local habits change. I can’t remember when the two-hour lunch disappeared in our French office but when we were bought by our current owner, they insisted that the Spanish office fall into line with the rest of the offices in Europe. They had to eat earlier and come back in an hour. They weren’t happy about that. These days I can ping Spain at 14:00 and get a reply.

My lunch time zone now at work is only around three hours.

Bon appetite! (Now if you could just get that info back to me by…and pass the salt. Thanks)

No Weather in Belgium

by Jen O Neill

I’ve been thinking about the recent travel chaos that hit Europe and North America over Christmas when air travel practically came to a standstill for days due to the snow. Like many, I was stranded and sought information everywhere and anywhere in an attempt to figure out when I might be getting off the ground. Internet, radio, TV.
Watching the weather forecasts on French TV, I noticed that the weather curiously stopped at the French border. Changing channels to a Dutch station, the weather there stopped at the Dutch border. Same phenomenon on German TV; no weather outside Germany.

Did this mean that there was no weather in Belgium, situated between these three countries?

Not at all. Belgian TV showed me that the country was indeed having its own enclosed microclimate and not sharing it with its neighbours either. But as a stranded air passenger, I was aware of the larger picture-that all these countries were indeed sharing their weather and that by sharing their weather, the weather was having a much bigger impact than if it had stayed as numerous microclimates.

It’s not just TV weather news that can be accused of confining themselves within self-imposed borders. We can be guilty of it, too. Restricting our thinking and work within the confines of our own boundaries, such as narrow functional responsibilities, is unfortunately too easy to do. Silos can seem such comfortable places. Both for us and the information we produce as writers. How much information in our style guides, for example, could be used by other groups in the company but is never shared or has not been set up to be shared? Perhaps they don’t even know we have it. And what do they have that could be useful to us?

And yet, just as the weather has found, we can make a much bigger impact if we get out and collaborate with others. It can be hard to step outside the comfort zone. Yet if we want to develop and succeed professionally, we need to think outside of the box.

We need to be more like the weather. Circulate.

Sharing our source files with other companies

by Jen O Neill

Earlier this year, Tom Johnson in his blog “I’d Rather Be Writing” discussed the issue of documentation ownership. He had recently handed over the source files of several manuals he had done to an internal client and felt that the manuals had been “stolen” from him. He acknowledged that it was the loss of “ownership” that unsettled him. He no longer controlled the quality of his documentation.

Ownership does matter

The topic caught my attention as I regularly exchange source files with customers, developers and our sales offices. Where I differ from Tom is that I am often exchanging source files with those from outside of my company. “Ownership” takes on a legal context in such situations. Whatever I may think about a document being “mine”, it really does matter to my company what happens to it after we hand it over and who becomes responsible for the content.

Sharing files in a collaborative age

In my product group at work we regularly share source files with third party companies. Several of our products are manufactured by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). We receive their source files of the accompanying manuals to customize for our market needs as well as to rebrand.

Occasionally a large customer may request that we customize one of our product to suit their market requirements, which will mean the documentation too. Usually we would customize the documentation in-house but not always.

Not everybody wants English. Many of our customers don’t operate in English. As we operate globally, we translate into many languages and they may want their language to be customised. A large Danish customer, for example, wanted our Danish translations customised. As we couldn’t do such work ourselves, it was agreed that we’d hand over the Danish source files to them for them do rework and rebrand. They also wanted to customise our Swedish translations themselves.

And everyone wants the source files in Word. Microsoft Word is the common tool between us all.

Signing a contractual agreement

Sharing source files with third party companies — whether receiving source files from OEMs or handing over source files to external customers for example — means that as writers we should be aware of the legal implications. Obviously we shouldn’t blindly hand over source files whenever an external customer requests it.

There must be a contractual agreement drawn up between two companies and one of the items covered will be document customization. This agreement will state whether your company will do the customization in-house or if the source files are to be handed over to customers for them to modify the documents under their responsibility.

Handing over source files to customers

Before handing over source files to a customer, you need to ensure that:

  • Your company branding has been removed—Your company branding must be removed such as company logos, propriety fonts, and any company branding colours. Proprietary fonts, or example, could be changed to a general font such as Arial.
  • The copyright statement has been removed—Unmodified manuals used by customers remain the property of your company. However, if any changes to the contents of the manual are made—including simply replacing your company’s logo with that of the customer—you need to remove your company’s copyright statement from the manual and replace it with the customer’s copyright statement as they are now responsible for the content. The customer then also determines the legal front matter text to be used.
  • The customer has signed the legal agreement—Before handing over source files to a customer, the customer must sign a license and indemnity agreement drawn up by your legal department. Normally it’s the product manager iwho’s responsible for ensuring that the customer signs the agreement and for keeping the signed copy.

Customising third party documentation

The contractual agreement drawn up with the supplier, such as an OEM, will specify who is responsible for customizing the technical documentation and its maintenance. By customising the contents of the supplier’s documentation to meet your company’s requirements, your company then becomes responsible for the content and its maintenance.

You also need to consider regulatory requirements and how they impact the supplier documentation that you are customising. Products branded as your company’s products, or products imported by your company into a regional market such as the EU, must comply with the applicable regulatory requirements (such as European Union directives).

Under new ownership

There are going to be times when we have say goodbye to our work and wish it well under new ownership. Although as technical writers we can often be loath to handing over our source files to customers for fear of the impact on quality, exchanging information is part of doing business. Our work is part of business. We need to know what’s involved when handing over source files to third parties so that we and our companies don’t get any nasty surprises later on.